As the world rang in the Near Year this this week, NASA was looking forward to a big milestone of its own — nine years and counting on the surface of Mars for an overachieving Red Planet rover mission.Full story

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Ashitey Trebi-Olennu is one of the engineers behind the robotic arm system on NASA's Curiosity rover. He has also been a rover planner for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and worked on the robotic arm system for the Phoenix Mars Lander.

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HiRISE has never before imaged the actual lander for the Spirit rover in color, on the west side of Bonneville Crater. The lander is still bright, but with a reddish color, probably due to a dust cover.

The Spirit rover's last panorama, sent back in February 2010, shows its surroundings in Mars' Columbia Hills. The hill with the light-colored top, visible near the top center image, was dubbed Von Braun and would have been Spirit's next destination.